How To Build Your Brand Online

Small to medium businesses around Australia and New Zealand are the lifeblood of our economies. With the permeating nature of the internet, the internet of things, and the way we have integrated the internet in our everyday lives, it means that SMEs have an opportunity of the likes that has never been seen before. SMEs can now build and grow their carefully nurtured brand online and filter this through into the lives of customers. Your business’s brand has never been exposed in the way it’s about to.

It means, now more than ever, your business’s online visibility is absolutely essential to your online success. So how exactly do you grow your brand online? It’s paramount to recall the saying, ‘it won’t happen overnight, but it will happen’ here. Now we’re not saying that slow and steady wins the race either, but a steady flow of online engagement will definitely help!

Firstly, your brand should be apparent in every phase, feature and angle of your business conducts. Your employees should be thoroughly familiar with this expectation, and every new product or service should adhere to this as well. It means that your website must be your online version of a physical bricks-and-mortar shop front. Marry this with an effective Pay Per Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimisation strategy, and your business increases its online branding opportunities several times over. Don’t forget that your Client Manager here at SponsoredLinX is always willing to help you perform this.

Show, don’t tell, your brand’s story. When people purchase something from your business, they are not just buying that product or service, but they are buying into the ‘image’ that product or service carries. Think about the types of coffee beans some people purchase. People who buy coffee beans ‘X’ which has the same flavour and crema as coffee beans ‘Y’, will buy coffee beans ‘X’ because they come from an under-developed area where the beans are grown organically and dedicates a certain percentage of the revenue from the purchase of coffee beans ‘X’ to go back into the community that grows them. The consumer has therefore bought into an image that they are not only purchasing coffee beans ‘X’, but that they are buying organic beans, which will in turn, aid the people who grow them.

Seizing the moment can be a major player in this game and there will certainly be times when you need to turn a negative experience around. Take the infamous ‘404 Error page’. Say a customer has clicked on a link on your website, and for whatever reason, the link/URL is not working. 404 Error page pages are notoriously boring and incredibly annoying. But there are brands out there which have taken this essential error landing page and turned it around to make it engaging and sometimes, even entertaining. It’s because instead of an ordinary, boring, and annoying 404 Error page, it’s an opportunity to embed your brand’s personality in a different facet of your customers’ experience.

If you think about the giant conglomerate brands like Unilever, there is a reason why the brands that fall beneath these parent companies are kept separate, because brands like Rexona, Streets and Lipton have their own distinct branding persona; they have their own image.

Remember, the larger the size of your business, the more baggage it needs to carry, and therefore it requires more action to change its positioning to the desired state. It’s why brands like Unilever don’t use ‘Unilever’ to market their many brands and products. In other words, if you are a small to medium business owner, take comfort in the fact that your branding for your business is entirely possible and achievable. It’s in your control and you can decide how you want it to play out.

Your business is different, and it’s this differentiation which forms the basis, the framework, of your brand. Your website, your social media accounts, your online advertising, is all a part of what we like to call your Online PR. The most effective way of managing this is through using the tools, technology and people around you. So, how do you grow your brand online? You contact us here at SponsoredLinX, that’s what you do. So call us today on 1300 859 600.

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